I'm a card-carrying snob! I think the thing about Wintour and her promotion of people like Kim K is that it's (shamefully) fully in alignment with her taste – because it's awful. As Azzedine Alaïa said in one of my favorite interviews of all time, "When I see how she is dressed, I don't believe her tastes one second." But I think taste is a big issue that needs to be addressed across the board. It certainly seems to have been completely sucked out of just about all mainstream publications at this point. I grew up loving magazines so much, and I hate that I don't feel that way about them anymore.
Sure, I think Wintour's success has as much to do with her abilities as a savvy operator as anything. In some sense, just given the way in which Vogue has come to function as pop-culture shorthand, it's actually a fairly middle-brow view of fashion and taste. That's actually what shocked me the most at the time--it seemed self-evident that Vogue would garner more attention as a foil to Kardashian and the rest. Once you invite her in the tent you have to compete for attention with her, and you're going to lose.
Yup! Bethann Hardison once said years ago that part of what used to make fashion great was that it was its own ecosystem—and then it started chasing other segments of pop culture instead of allowing itself to be chased. Now, it’s just smashed in with everything else.
I'm a card-carrying snob! I think the thing about Wintour and her promotion of people like Kim K is that it's (shamefully) fully in alignment with her taste – because it's awful. As Azzedine Alaïa said in one of my favorite interviews of all time, "When I see how she is dressed, I don't believe her tastes one second." But I think taste is a big issue that needs to be addressed across the board. It certainly seems to have been completely sucked out of just about all mainstream publications at this point. I grew up loving magazines so much, and I hate that I don't feel that way about them anymore.
Sure, I think Wintour's success has as much to do with her abilities as a savvy operator as anything. In some sense, just given the way in which Vogue has come to function as pop-culture shorthand, it's actually a fairly middle-brow view of fashion and taste. That's actually what shocked me the most at the time--it seemed self-evident that Vogue would garner more attention as a foil to Kardashian and the rest. Once you invite her in the tent you have to compete for attention with her, and you're going to lose.
Yup! Bethann Hardison once said years ago that part of what used to make fashion great was that it was its own ecosystem—and then it started chasing other segments of pop culture instead of allowing itself to be chased. Now, it’s just smashed in with everything else.
And now, best-case scenario, you're vertically integrated into one of the conglomerate multiverses.